The fact that many sites are still supporting an eight year old browser has long been a topic of conversation on the web and Microsoft has now thrown its own 2 cents in, explaining the why dropping support for IE6 is not an option.
The post by Microsoft’s Dean Hachamovitch, the General Manager of the Internet Explorer team, references a recent survey done by Digg.com regarding users who were still using IE6. The survey showed that 69 percent of Digg users still using Internet Explorer 6 were doing so because either they don’t have administrator access on my computer or someone at work says they can't and it looks like Microsoft is standing behind those who cannot upgrade because their employer says they can't.
Dean begins by stating that as a browser supplier, of course the company wants users to run the latest version of IE for security, performance, interoperability, and more. However, Dean goes on to say that a huge number of computers do not belong to individual users, but to organizations and highlights the cost of maintaining and updating so many machines, concluding that the choice to upgrade belongs to the person responsible for the PC.
The post clarifies that it has to support IE6 because the company committed to supporting the IE included with Windows for the lifespan of the product; hence dropping support is "not an option." However, several major websites would be inclined to disagree. Do you think major websites should stop support for IE6? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments below!
